Contemporary single family and multiple family dwelling construction utilizes an outer roof covering comprised of shingles that may be fabricated from wooden shakes or a variety of man made materials such aspalt impregnated fibrous panels. Regardless of the type of materials utilized in constructing the shingles, they deteriorate with age and are prone to wind damage, necessitating their periodic removal and replacement. Because the shingles are assembled on a roof in an overlapping fashion, it is necessary that they be peeled up toward the apex of the roof. Since the shingles lie flat and have a plurality of nails securing them to the sub-roof, this is an all but impossible task to accomplish by hand. Therefore, numerous tools have been provided to strip the shingles from the roofs but all such tools to date suffer from various drawbacks.
For instance, the tool described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,086,699 on "Roof Stripping Tool" issued to E. Olkkola results in a relatively lightweight tool but it fails to provide an adequate means to remove nails. For instance, in FIGS. 3 and 5 of Olkkola you will note that a sharp, relatively broad edge is provided for slipping under the tiles. Due to the width of this front edge, many nails are sheared off or the tool is stopped from its forward, stripping motion. If the nails are sheared, no head remains and they cannot easily be removed from the sub-roof. If the cut nails are allowed to remain in the sub-roof, they will damage subsequent new roofing. Another drawback in tools such as that disclosed in the Olkkola patent is the angle between the blade and handle. As can be seen in FIGS. 1 and Column 2 Lines 43 et seq the force vector in the forward or stripping motion loses significant force due to the downward vector caused by the angle of the tool handle and the blade. This results in an excessive force being utilized by the tool operator, making the work much harder than it need be and, in many instances due to the downward force applied, resulting in damage to the sub-roof.
A. Phillips et al, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,769,236 on "Tile Removing Tools" illustrates another hand held tool for stripping tiles. Note that this tool provides no means for prying nails from the roof and results in all of the nails being sheared, creating problems similar to that described with the sheared nails left by the Olkkola device.
C. Knowles, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,113,758 on "Fulcrum Attachment for Blade Implements" provides an adapter for a spade which will permit the spade to be used to pry shingles from the roof. Note that using a spade in the manner described pries shingles but fails to ensure that roofing nails will be pried up. Devices such as the Knowles device will either shear nails as the Phillips or Olkkola devices or else bind in the roof between the shingles to be removed and the sub-roof.
E. Saucier Sr. et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,836,119 on "Roof Covering Removing Tool" is another example of a roof stripping tool which results in sheared roofing nails. This tool suffers an additional drawback in that it does not include an adequate fulcrum point to permit prying up the roofing materials by downward motion of the handle. To use the Saucier tool, the tool is pushed forward, using the cutting edge of the tool as a fulcrum point. This action results in significant damage to the sub-roof, see for instance FIG. 4.
W. Soliverius, U.S. Pat. No. 3,818,593 on "Blade For Material Stripping Apparatus" discloses a stripping tool utilizing an extremely heavy blade which in most embodiments is incorporated in a wheeled, vehicle like affair powered by a mechanical driving force. FIG. 6 of this patent illustrates a hand manipulated version of the tool but due to its structure it is relatively unwieldy. The stripping blade is angled so that stripping functions and nail removal is created as the tool is slid forward across a sub-roof surface, see FIG. 7. This necessitates an extremely forceful action along the plane of the roof and the required force can only be achieved in the manual tool when an extremely strong operator exerts large amounts of energy to slide the tool along the roof plane. As can be seen in the various illustrations of the patent, no fulcrum means are provided and if the tool engages resistant nails, any action to pry them out will be hampered due to the lack of a sufficiently broad fulcrum point. For instance, in FIG. 6 if the handle is used as a lever to pry out nail H, it appears as if a fulcrum point might exist at the top apex of the blade. If this is the case, the narrow fulcrum point will result in considerable roof damage.
C. Erickson Jr., U.S. Pat. No. 3,074,694 on "Roof-Nail Spud" illustrates a tool which is adapted primarily to remove roofing nails. It is comprised of a plurality of wedge plates and due to their long, individual blade like effect on roof surfaces will cause considerable damage to sub-roofs if used as a shingle stripping tool. The construction of the Erickson tool, is such that it necessitates a relatively narrow tool that is ineffectual in removing standard roofing shingles since its use will result in breaking the shingles up into a number of small pieces that are not completely separated from each other and thus pieces of loose roofing is secured to the roof by portions of the shingle that have not been sufficiently stripped therefrom.